WEBVTT - Season 08 Episode 10: Not All Who Wander 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:15.400 Lost worlds have always tugged firmly on the human imagination. 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.840 For millennia, we've shared tales of forgotten places where time 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.680 has not kept pace with history, where the clutter and 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:30.400 conformity of the contemporary world do not hold sway. The 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:34.599 most famous of all lost worlds is the mythical Atlantis, 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:40.159 first introduced in Plato's Dialogs to Maeus and Critius around 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.839 three hundred and sixty BCE. Atlantis is described as a 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:51.479 utopian island nation home to an advanced seafaring society. After 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.880 the Atlanteans supposedly went to war with Athens, the gods 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.959 punished them with fire and flood, sinking their proud home 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.200 Rome into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. For some, 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:09.240 Atlantis is an allegory for the inevitable downfall that follows 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:14.400 greed and hubris. For others, it is of very real civilization, 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:20.759 lost to antiquity, but shining still in the imagination. There 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:25.000 are other similar stories of sunken lands around the globe. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:31.040 Limyria a nation submerged beneath the Indian Ocean, move a 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.720 fabled continent swallowed down by the Pacific. Then there is 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:40.279 the El Dorado, the legendary South American city of Gold 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:46.480 or Shambala, a mystical paradise of enlightenment hidden somewhere in 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:51.880 the Himalayas. Taken together, these stories point to a deep 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.520 rooted and universal desire to maintain some mystery in the world, 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.920 a mystery under constant erosion by the unceasing march of 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:07.120 technological development, and the human urge to explore, to fill 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:12.200 in the map of the world with fact distances and details. 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.000 But if the romance were squeezed out of our cartography, 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.400 it snuck back in through our fiction. In eighteen eighty five, 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:26.680 h Rider Haggard wrote King Solomon's Minds, often regarded as 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:30.600 the origin of the modern lost world genre in the 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:35.360 Western tradition, at least in it, Haggard's explorers, led by 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:40.400 the undauntable Allan Quartermaine mount an arduous trek through an 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:45.679 unmapped region of Central Africa in search of the fabled minds, 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:52.880 confronting ancient, unknown cultures. Three decades later, Arthur Conan Doyle 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:57.200 published The Lost World, in which another group of adventurers 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:02.880 discover a bubble of prehistory lingering atop an Amazonian plateau, 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.840 a microcosm of the past, full of ancient monsters and 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:12.160 rugged cave people. But there are other hidden parts of 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:16.920 the world and stories about them that reveal a darker truth. 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:28.360 In Joseph Comrade's seminal novel The Heart of Darkness, Sailor 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:33.359 Charles Marlowe speaks of his boyhood lust for adventure. Now, 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.280 when I was a little chap there were many blank 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.160 spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.320 looked particularly inviting on a map, I would put my 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.240 finger on it and say, when I grow up, I 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.120 will go there. But there was one yet, the biggest, 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.240 the most blank, so to speak, that I had a 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:57.160 hankering after. That blank space on Marlowe's map was the 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:02.000 Congo Basin, an area of one point one million square 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:06.320 miles deep in central Africa, home to the world's second 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:11.160 largest rainforest, deepest river, and a huge range of flora 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.520 and fauna. It is a place that perhaps most represents 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:21.080 the stereotypical mystery and untamed wildness long attached to Africa 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:26.320 in the white European mind. The story is essentially an 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:31.200 account of Marlow's steamship journey up the Congo River in 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:36.599 search of the enigmatic Kurts, a sinister European ivory trader. 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.200 But as is so often the case, what Marlowe had 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:46.479 once viewed as an unknown space was rather simply unknown 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:51.719 to him. In reality, it was already populated by hundreds 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.480 of thousands of people, and the only strange and monstrous 0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:00.000 things he discovered there were the brutal acts being perpose 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:04.520 traded on them. For Marlowe, the Congo ceased to be 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:09.280 a blank space of delightful mystery, and instead had become 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.880 a place of darkness. But there is a parallel story 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.320 to this sphere of dense forest and deep water, one 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:24.320 told over centuries by local Congolese and explorers alike, a 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:28.240 story that calls into question what we truly know about 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.200 our world and what may lurk still in the parts 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.359 of the map that have yet to be fully filled. 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:42.080 In You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith. 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:54.400 In the seventeen sixties, abbe Levan Bonaventure Proia, a French 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.200 writer and cleric, worked as a missionary in the Congo basin. 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.640 Years later, after returning to France, he wrote a book 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.920 detailing his experience of the region and compiling his fellow 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:12.320 missionaries knowledge of its natural wonders. No doubt, this book, 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:17.839 titled a History of Lango, Cocongo and other Kingdoms of Africa, 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.839 would have slipped into total obscurity were it not for 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:29.240 one enigmatic passage. Missionaries Proyar Rites have observed passing along 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.760 a forest the trail of an animal they have never seen, 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.920 but which must be monstrous. The marks of its claws 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.120 were noted upon the earth, and these composed a footprint 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:47.400 of about three feet in circumference. By observing the disposition 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.440 of his footsteps, it was recognized that he was not running, 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.360 and he carried his legs at the distance of seven 0:06:55.440 --> 0:07:01.400 to eight feet apart. Proyar does not elaborate further. It 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.600 gives no additional details and what this unnamed creature is 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:11.320 or what it supposedly looks like. This is nonetheless considered 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.600 the first written reference to a creature known as morkel 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:22.360 and Bembe, Africa's most infamous undiscovered animal, or in modern 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:28.720 terminology cryptid. In the oral traditions of the local Bantu people, 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:34.640 the mockle and Bembe is alternatively spirit allegory or flesh 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:39.360 and blood creature. One tale goes that during a bloody 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.920 bout of tribal warfare, a band of Congolese pigmies were 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.480 fleeing through the rainforest when they reached a river too 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:52.000 wide and dangerous to cross with pursuers on their trail, 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:57.120 They were caught until a broad back breached the river's surface, 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.920 a living bridge that the pigmase scrambled across to safety. 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.960 Other accounts present the macklay and bembey as a very 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:11.760 real and much less benign entity, but in either case 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:16.560 reference is always made to its grand site. In the 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:22.200 Lingala language, mockle and bembe means one who stops the 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:28.440 flow of rivers. In nineteen thirteen, a German explorer visited 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:33.760 what is now modern day Cameroon. The man Ludwig Freiheer 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:38.080 von steins u Lausnitz was on a government funded mission 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:43.640 to survey the German colonies. While trekking the bush, Ludwig 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:48.640 heard recurrent tales of a mysterious animal feared by natives 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:53.440 of the neighboring Congo. He was particularly astounded that these 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:58.760 accounts came from such experienced guides, who, despite coming from 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:03.959 different tribes separated by many miles of dense rainforest or 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:09.360 relaid similar details. The creature was said to inhabit shallow 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:14.079 waters and the exposed banks of sharp river bends. According 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:18.439 to cautionary tales, if anyone was unwary or unlucky enough 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.920 to paddle close to the creature's lair, the mokele and 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:26.160 Bembe would rush forth and destroy the canoes and the 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:30.280 people inside them with a heavy swipe of its tail. 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.280 It never ate the bodies, though they were left undisturbed 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:40.240 the floating detritus of the apparent beast's extreme territorialism, and 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.400 while local tribespeople spoke of the mochle and Bembe as 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.960 capable of hunting and killing an elephant, they were never 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:52.959 known to devour the carcass. Indeed, the mochle and Bembe 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:59.040 was said to enjoy an exclusively herbivorous diet, climbing laboriously 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.840 up the bank of the river to feast on the 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:05.880 local foliage. In particular, it is said to have a 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:09.960 taste for the mulumbo, an apple like fruit common to 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:23.280 the banks of rivers and lakes. To the people of 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:28.520 the Congo, the mochele and Bembe simply was an oversized 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:32.400 part of their ecosystem, like an elephant or a hippo, 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:37.720 and they described it with the same level of consistency. Supposedly, 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:41.520 the animal was very large, with a body a little 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:46.200 bigger than an adult elephant, covered in smooth, scaleless skin. 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.760 A small head sat at the end of a long, 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:54.760 sinuous neck, and it wielded an alligator like tail thick 0:10:54.840 --> 0:11:00.760 with mussel. To Western explorers, however, physical discs scriptions of 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:05.319 the apparent monster, coupled with its eating habits, hinted at 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:11.079 an alluring, alarming question. Does a dinosaur live on the 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:16.360 so called lost world of the Congo basin? One man 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:22.080 attempted to find out. Professor Roy Mackell arrived in the 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:26.840 Congo for the first time in January nineteen eighty, a 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:31.840 respected biologist recently retired from the University of Chicago. He 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:36.800 was also vice president of the International Society of Cryptozoology 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.440 under world authority on the topic of the Lochness Monster. 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.960 Having grown tired of the endless, unrewarded search for NeSSI, 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.720 Mackell turned his attention to Africa after his friend, the 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:56.640 herpetologist James Powell, related a story he once heard from 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:00.560 a Bantu folk healer. The healer had told Old Powell 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.280 of a great jungle beast, a source of terror and 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:09.080 owe for the Bantu people. Keen to identify the creature, 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.160 Paw presented the healer with a picture book of animals. 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.000 The healer looked on passively as Paw turned the page 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.080 on one animal after another, when finally he told Paw 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:26.240 to stop, energetically pointing to one particular image on a page. 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:32.319 It was a picture of a Diplodocus, a sauropod dinosaur 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:36.240 measuring on average twenty seven meters long and four and 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.320 a half meters tour that went extinct one hundred and 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:46.160 forty five million years ago, and so Intrigued and buoyed 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:50.360 by the implications, Macaw and Powell made their way together 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:54.880 to the Republic of Congo. Starting from the city of 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:59.240 Ifondo in the northeast, the two friends began a month 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.840 long trek through the Licoala Swamp, a vast expanse of 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:08.400 over fifty five thousand maize like square miles of rivers, 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:13.560 shallow lakes, and low lying islands, as impenetrable to western 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.480 tourists as it is perfect for a semi aquatic lizard. 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:23.079 Their guide was Marion Nicole, a local pigmy whose help 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:28.720 would prove essential. As mocel and Bembay believers have argued, 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:33.080 the Likohala Swamp region is highly suitable for a large 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:39.439 prehistoric species to survive and breed in small populations. Not 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.920 only is it supremely isolated, it has remained almost unchanged 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:49.880 since the Cretaceous period, with a stable climate, minimal tectonic disruption, 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:55.800 and virtually no movement from its proximity to the equator. Here, 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.439 Macal argued a herd of dinosaurs could potentially go was 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:06.400 unnoticed as a swarm of insects. But it hadn't gone unnoticed, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:17.200 as McAll and Powell quickly discovered while they trekked from 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:21.800 town to town. Stories of Maclay and Bembe encounters were 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:26.840 not hard to come by. One Bantu man, Furman Mossamele, 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.600 told them how as a young boy, he'd disturbed the 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:35.080 animal paddling near the town of Epina before he fled 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.160 in terror. Furman saw a small head rise from the river, 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:44.960 followed by a serpentine neck and broad ruddy back, just 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:49.040 like Powell's healer. Furman also pointed to a depiction of 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:53.280 a sauropod dinosaur in a book as the nearest comparison 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.640 to what he saw. Another first hand account from a 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:02.800 hunter named Nicholas Mondongo described a ruddy red river monster 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.600 standing in water only a few feet deep. He told 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.680 the fascinated researchers that the creature was at least ten 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.320 meters from its head to the tip of its thick tail, 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:20.080 and he too recognized the mochelae and bembe in the 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:25.560 drawings of the Diplodocus and other sauropods. Mikail had begun 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:30.080 his expedition with skepticism about the idea of a surviving 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:35.440 modern day dinosaur. However, after contemplating the scale of the 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:40.600 unexplored rainforest and hearing from more witnesses who each pointed 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:45.000 eagerly to pictures of surapods, he flew home with a 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:50.760 firm conviction something unknown was roaming the interior of the 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:57.359 Congo Basin. In October nineteen eighty one, Macau returned to Africa, 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:02.640 determined to find definitive roof This time, he headed up 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:07.640 a larger team, which included his International Society of Cryptosymology 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:13.760 colleague Richard Greenwell of Congolese biologist doctor Marcellan and Nanya, 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.920 and pastor Eugene Thomas, an American missionary who'd lived in 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.360 the country since the late fifties and who claimed to 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:27.000 have heard over fifty first hand reports of the apparent creature. 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:33.000 German electrical engineer and avid proponent of the mckelay and 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:38.200 Bembey theory, Hermann Regustas was also supposed to join the party, 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:45.440 providing vital expertise and the ability to employ satellite tracking. Sadly, however, 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.920 for reasons unknown, he and Macaw fell out, and he 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:54.200 neglected to join the team on their quest. Under turret, 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:59.240 macau moved forward. This time, he decided to refine the 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.920 search area, choosing to focus on the waterways and swamp 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.720 land itself. As their trip began at the end of 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.359 the rainy season, water levels were high enough to allow 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.960 the group to travel by river, faster than the previous 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.879 year's overland journey and closer to the habitat that the 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:23.560 creature would ostensibly call home. The team traveled in perogues, 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:29.440 long narrow canoes carved from a single tree trunk. Parogues 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:32.240 sit very low in the water, with only an inch 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:36.920 or two of draft, but their stability and maneuverability makes 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:41.040 them the vessel of choice for Bantu and Pygmy river communities. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.480 The group's initial aim was to reach Lake Telee, a 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.639 remote lake thought to be a particular haunt of the 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:54.040 Macklay and Bembey. As rumor had it, it was there 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:58.600 in nineteen sixty that a group of Bogombay pigmies felt 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:03.280 one of the creatures us using long spears. Only no 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.359 sooner had they begun feasting on the carcass. One by one, 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.359 the group as said to have collapsed and died due 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:22.360 to a deadly poison said to saturate the creature's flesh. 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:26.679 Even without the threat of poison, the Bogombay Pygmy story 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.320 is the only account of the enigmatic beast being brought 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.639 down by humans, and without spears or hunting expertise of 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:38.440 their own, there was no doubt. The Macal party set 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:42.280 out with no little trepidation as they headed back into 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:48.000 the swamp. Embarking from Pastor Thomas's mission, Macau's team first 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:52.399 canoed southwest down the Tanga River and then south on 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:57.000 the larger le Koala o Zerb River. At some point 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:01.359 Macau heard a loud splash from near the bank. He 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:05.760 turned quickly to see a sizeable rogue wave come cresting 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:11.280 across from the shadowy vine encrusted overhang. The river. Water 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:16.040 washed across their pirogues, prompting the guides to scream out 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:22.080 in terror Mochle and Bembe. Mockele and Bembey with great persistence, 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.840 Macau just about managed to convince them not to flee. 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.679 After a half hour search, the team found no evidence 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:35.520 or tracks with which to identify whatever had created the wave. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:41.040 Either way, the nervous guide e Cole assured the team 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.760 that of all the creatures it might have been, crocodiles 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.960 do not create waves when they enter the water, elephants 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.200 do not fully submerge themselves, and no hippos were known 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.880 to inhabit that section of the le Koala. When Macau 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.480 asked how the guide knew the no hippos in the area, 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.920 his response was swift and matter of fact. The Mokel 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.280 and Bembey had chased them all away, he said. Some 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:14.640 time later, the expedition reached the confluence of the Lekoala, 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:19.960 o Zerb and the Uncharted River. By Here they established 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:25.520 a base and visited several local villages, gathering more eyewitness testimony. 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:31.280 In total, they collected more than thirty independent reports of 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:36.960 apparent encounters with the Macklay and Bembey. One hunter escorted 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.520 Macau to a stretch of river bank where he discovered 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:45.280 a large trail that he couldn't identify. Some large animal 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:48.760 had clearly dredged itself from the river and headed into 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:54.879 the surrounding jungle, leaving foot wide clawed prints. The size 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.160 of the path it created was roughly the same as 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:02.720 that made by an elephant, But elephants do not have claws, 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:07.119 and the hunter emphasized that neither did they devastate the 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:11.600 plant life in quite the way this creature had. Feeling 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.320 confident they were on the cusp of a discovery, Macaal 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:20.320 and his team aimed to push on to Lake Telley. Unfortunately, 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.840 to their great disappointment, they learned how fallible the maps 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:29.440 of the local region had up till then been. As 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:32.480 it turned out, the river they were on was not 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.879 the northern reach of the Bye River as they had thought, 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:40.280 and to reach Lake Telley from their position would require 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:46.040 an overland slog through the most inhospitable terrain, equipped only 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:49.280 for a river journey, they had no choice but to 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:54.280 turn back. Macaw's great search for the dinosaur of the 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:59.399 Congo had reached an anticlimactic end. He flew back to 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.240 the u s no less persuaded of the creature's existence, 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.720 but with the heavy awareness that none of the evidence 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:22.280 he collected would convince the zoological community. Roy Macaw's nineteen 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:26.640 eighty seven book A Living Dinosaur in Search of Mockelay 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:30.640 and Bembe, which he subsequently wrote, did much to promote 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:35.120 the idea of prehistoric survival into the present day, though 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:39.440 macau was ultimately forced to concede that though the mystery 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:45.760 beckons pending new information from future expeditions, our speculations must 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:50.359 rest here. But Roy mackel had not been the only 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:56.160 cryptozoologist scourring the swamps for monsters after their falling out. 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:01.480 Herm and Rougustus, the German satellite specialists, had initiated his 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:05.600 own expedition, which also took place in the autumn of 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:10.520 nineteen eighty one. In fact, Ermine had started a four 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:16.439 month before. Like Mackel, Ermine also centered his attention on 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:21.160 the elusive Lake Telley, but he was successful in reaching it. 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:25.880 His team, which included his wife Kia in the role 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:30.159 as chief medical officer, arrived there on October twenty eighth, 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.840 when Mackel was still days from setting out on the river. 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:39.680 Seen from above, Lake Telley is a great shining disk, 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:44.040 two miles wide and enclosed on all sides by a 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:48.320 limitless blanket of trees. To some it looks like a 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:52.919 vast eye staring up from a dark green face, the 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:57.359 inlets and rivers running to and from it like scars. 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:01.639 It is here that the mochll Bembe is thought to 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:06.120 make its home. On the afternoon of their first day, 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:11.880 Rmin and Kia noticed sizeable waves radiating in the otherwise 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:16.840 calm water. However, it wasn't possible to see the source 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:21.560 of the disturbance that day, but the following morning, one 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:25.320 of the party believed they spotted a long, neck like 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:30.160 protuberance stretching out from the lake. It stayed in view 0:24:30.400 --> 0:24:33.960 for a full five minutes before sinking out of sight. 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:38.680 It was a week later when Herman and Kia heard 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:43.080 a frightening noise emanating from the jungle around their shore 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:48.480 side camp. It began as a low roar which increased 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:52.720 in volume and violence to a deep throated, trumpeting growl. 0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:57.879 As they described it, the couple sat in their canoe, 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:02.200 rooted with fascination and fear as whatever made the noise 0:25:02.480 --> 0:25:06.760 could be heard plowing through the trees, growling and battering 0:25:06.880 --> 0:25:12.159 vegetation as it went. On November twenty seventh, after a 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:16.000 full month on the Lake Kia, claint have glimpsed a long, 0:25:16.359 --> 0:25:21.040 sinuous appendage rising from the water, topped with a large 0:25:21.280 --> 0:25:25.679 snakelike head. She estimated it to be over six and 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:29.879 a half feet in length. It apparently swayed in full 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:34.400 view as if waving to the awestruck woman, before sinking, 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:40.480 as ever, beneath the surface. Sadly, for all these sightings, 0:25:40.760 --> 0:25:47.200 the Augustus expedition gathered no photographic or physical evidence. Hermann 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:51.399 blamed human error and humidity, and though he returned home 0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:56.240 convinced of the existence of a relict dinosaur, his anecdotal 0:25:56.320 --> 0:26:07.320 reports caused barely a stir. Two years after the Macal 0:26:07.440 --> 0:26:11.600 and Rugusta expeditions, another team battled their way to the 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:16.400 shores of Lake Telley, but this time people paid attention. 0:26:17.720 --> 0:26:21.880 Marcellan and Nanya was the Congolese zoologist who was part 0:26:21.960 --> 0:26:26.240 of Macal's second expedition. He also had a government role 0:26:26.520 --> 0:26:30.560 in the Ministry of Water and Forests. As such, he 0:26:30.680 --> 0:26:34.880 was well placed and well provisioned to pursue his determined 0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:39.880 search for the mackl and Bembe. In April nineteen eighty three, 0:26:40.119 --> 0:26:44.520 he put together a seven person Congolese only team, whose 0:26:44.560 --> 0:26:48.320 every member was familiar with the ecosystem they were set 0:26:48.400 --> 0:26:54.000 to explore once again. The hunters were drawn towards Lake Telley, 0:26:54.720 --> 0:26:59.359 like blood towards the heart. After days of canoeing and 0:26:59.440 --> 0:27:04.120 trekking through dense jungle, they finally arrived and promptly set 0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:08.240 up camp. On the second day of their stakeout, the 0:27:08.280 --> 0:27:13.000 group observed a huge turtle near to their bank. By 0:27:13.040 --> 0:27:17.719 Annanya's reckoning, it was over six feet long, easily double 0:27:17.760 --> 0:27:22.120 the size of the commonly recognized African soft shell turtle. 0:27:23.280 --> 0:27:26.199 Though some have wondered if this might in fact be 0:27:26.280 --> 0:27:30.040 the root of the whole Mokelly and Benbe story, nothing 0:27:30.119 --> 0:27:34.400 but an oversized turtle transformed through the prism of frightened 0:27:34.440 --> 0:27:40.000 imaginations into something even grander. The truth is, the giant 0:27:40.119 --> 0:27:44.919 turtle already has its own name and folklore attached the 0:27:45.040 --> 0:27:49.240 endn Deci. They call it a creature in many ways, 0:27:49.359 --> 0:27:53.480 just as fabled as the Mocklae and Bembey, And so 0:27:53.640 --> 0:27:58.159 it would seem, even without offering up a surviving dinosaur, 0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:01.959 Lake Hell was all already living up to its reputation 0:28:02.520 --> 0:28:07.520 as a lost world of the Arthur Conan Doyle variety. Then, 0:28:08.040 --> 0:28:12.880 on the third day May one, the dinosaur is said 0:28:12.960 --> 0:28:17.320 to have made its presence known, and Nanya was filming 0:28:17.320 --> 0:28:20.440 a troop of monkeys on the lake shore when he 0:28:20.440 --> 0:28:25.040 heard one of his party crying out in excitement. Dashing 0:28:25.080 --> 0:28:28.199 to the water's edge, he was stunned to see just 0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:32.000 under three hundred meters off shore the rising neck and 0:28:32.160 --> 0:28:36.760 back of a huge animal, and Nanya strode into the 0:28:36.800 --> 0:28:41.000 water and toward the creature, feeling a jolt of adrenaline 0:28:41.200 --> 0:28:43.720 when he saw its head turn at the sound of 0:28:43.720 --> 0:28:48.920 his approach sixty meters in, and Nanya stopped and raised 0:28:48.960 --> 0:28:53.720 his camera through the magnified lens. He later said he 0:28:53.800 --> 0:28:57.400 took in all the details that he'd heard locals repeat 0:28:57.680 --> 0:29:02.240 again and again. A foot long neck topped with an 0:29:02.360 --> 0:29:09.440 undersized snakelike head with crocodilian eyes, its skin shaded from 0:29:09.440 --> 0:29:14.040 its ruddy head down, a brown neck turning black across 0:29:14.080 --> 0:29:18.440 its hump, and the ten feet of its back. In total, 0:29:18.960 --> 0:29:22.959 the creature, he claimed, was over five meters in length. 0:29:23.960 --> 0:29:27.400 It sank for a moment beneath the water, he later said, 0:29:28.000 --> 0:29:31.680 only for its neck to soon re emerge and stay 0:29:31.800 --> 0:29:36.520 visible for a full twenty minutes. In this time, the 0:29:36.640 --> 0:29:41.480 zoologist determined that he was looking at something reptilian rather 0:29:41.600 --> 0:29:45.920 than mammalian, and felt compelled to conclude that it did 0:29:45.960 --> 0:29:58.520 indeed look very much like a sauropod dinosaur. When Marcellan 0:29:58.640 --> 0:30:03.480 and Nanyas Mochli and Bembe finally submerged fully into the water, 0:30:04.080 --> 0:30:08.280 his team apparently rushed to its last location in their pirogue, 0:30:08.680 --> 0:30:12.920 but saw nothing beneath the dense vegetable matter that gathered 0:30:12.960 --> 0:30:16.000 at the surface of the lake. It was when they 0:30:16.120 --> 0:30:19.560 arrived back at the shore that Ananya claimed to make 0:30:19.680 --> 0:30:24.240 the crushing discovery that he'd accidentally filmed the whole encounter 0:30:24.760 --> 0:30:29.760 with an entirely inappropriate focus setting, having neglected to change 0:30:29.800 --> 0:30:35.400 it after filming the monkeys. When he eventually apparently watched 0:30:35.400 --> 0:30:40.440 the footage back, it displayed only an impenetrable blurry image 0:30:41.200 --> 0:30:44.520 he did take several photos with a small thirty five 0:30:44.600 --> 0:30:50.720 millimeter camera. However, his grainy images of something dark breaking 0:30:50.760 --> 0:30:54.440 the surface of the lake have garnered both support and 0:30:54.640 --> 0:30:59.959 condemnation over the years. There the search for Central Africa 0:31:00.320 --> 0:31:05.160 living dinosaur could have rested in the uncertain ground between 0:31:05.240 --> 0:31:11.040 anecdote myth and compromised evidence. But there is just something 0:31:11.360 --> 0:31:16.200 about those empty places on the map human beings cannot 0:31:16.400 --> 0:31:21.600 keep away. Other expeditions have followed over the last forty years, 0:31:22.360 --> 0:31:26.760 plenty of them, most failed valiantly to gain any greater 0:31:26.840 --> 0:31:32.080 evidence than Roy mackel, Hermann, Rugusta's or Marcellan and Anya. 0:31:33.040 --> 0:31:37.640 In nineteen ninety two, a Japanese film crew recorded fifteen 0:31:37.720 --> 0:31:43.440 seconds of video showing something long and distinctly serpentine swimming 0:31:43.480 --> 0:31:48.920 across Lake Telley's glassy surface. It remains the most compelling 0:31:49.000 --> 0:31:53.720 sign that something unknown still calls the lake its home. 0:31:54.680 --> 0:31:57.920 But it is worth noting that Mocklay and Bembe is 0:31:57.960 --> 0:32:03.240 not the only prehistoric relic reported from the Congo. Other 0:32:03.360 --> 0:32:08.440 tales tell of the cassai rex, a ferocious carnival able 0:32:08.520 --> 0:32:12.960 to kill rhinos, and the Ammela and Tuca, a horned 0:32:12.960 --> 0:32:16.960 reptile as large as a bush elephant, with a striking 0:32:17.040 --> 0:32:22.520 resemblance to the triceratops. And then there is the Kanga motto, 0:32:23.560 --> 0:32:28.200 a huge bird with a seven foot wingspan, scaled rather 0:32:28.240 --> 0:32:31.840 than feathered. It is said to attack the boats of 0:32:31.960 --> 0:32:35.840 those that venture too far into the rivers and trees. 0:32:36.920 --> 0:32:42.840 When European explorers showed them images of prehistoric pterosaurs, the 0:32:42.920 --> 0:32:46.880